Confessions of a Sugar Mummy by Emma Tennant Read Free Book Online Page A

guinea pig on stilts (which is what the banker upstairs Mr Nyan looks like, and now I’ve thought it I can’t get it out of my head. If he tries to come down into my flat again I’ll feed him a lettuce) I’m desperate to get all these men out of my private quarters and relax while planning the next move.
    It occurs to me as I take my mobile off the charger in the sitting-room that there are certain emotions a Sugar Mummy must never allow herself to suffer from. If she gives in to them she deserves the worst of fates for one of my breed: that is, paying all the bills, giving loads of TLC, at least as much as a house ‘in need of totalrestoration’ would require, and receiving nothing in return. Nada. Nought. Ground Zero. And it looks as if that’s where I’m going. I’ve been far too soft and sympathetic and understanding to a goofy wastrel (well, he
is
attractive, even Molly granted that) who wants to have his (undoubtedly hash) cake and eat it; and too stoned to make a pass (for this must account for the odd ‘nothing’s-going-to-happen’ atmosphere around him) unless I’m too old, hag’s arm etc. for sex, and in order to tolerate my company at all he has to be drugged to the eyeballs.
    This is the clever tactic adopted by those picked out as the darlings of Sugar Mummies: keep them guessing. Are you too disgusting or nearly repulsive—or acceptable in a certain light? Millions of women with creams and lighteners and brown-blotch-on-hands removers spend their money and a large portion of their lives trying to work out which category they belong to.
    And I’m one of them. Pathetic, isn’t it?
    No surprise, then, that Messages on my phone shows Inbox Empty, as always. I have to be the one to make the calls. Why should I? I’ve had an empty inbox for as long as I can remember, and now I’ve made a packet (about to anyway) from this drearypiece of real estate people are going to be ringing
me
. But am I really like that? Do I believe that there’s no real friendship in the world—that people ring someone simply because they’ve come into some money? Of course not. Scarlett, this property boom and stupid infatuation are together doing you no good. Sell the flat and give a high percentage of the proceeds to charity. (Ha! Wonder if I’ll remember that when the time comes.) Get rid of Alain—there, I’ve said it! But how?
    Rules for turning back from the trainee Sugar Mummy into a decent, respectable older woman whose main treat is Sunday lunch with stressed relatives, admiring their grandchildren, or other blameless activities such as making meatloaf for same stressed relatives (seldom appreciated, unfortunately) or knitting:
    Lose a sense of compassion. If the candidate for being a recipient of a Sugar Mummy’s love and affection has been thrown out of his home by parents or girlfriend it is
not
up to you to provide somewhere for him to live. Nor should you throw away your pension (or proceeds from a hefty property sale) on private medicine. If he dies while waiting foran NHS appointment/operation, it is
not
your fault.
    Throw away the trappings of Vanity: the Manolo shoes, the Mulberry bag, the Burberry anything. Ditto the eye shadow, the crate fillers, the bag-under-the-eyes concealers—let these be the only bags you possess (apart from the endless carrier bags, which old women can’t bring themselves to throw away).
    You don’t need a mobile phone. The temptation to ring a possible Object of Desire can be great, and as you are becoming increasingly blind and deaf you will be inclined to sit on the very number you pretended to yourself had been erased from Memory, causing upset and embarrassment, or, worse, a resumption of the relationship, to encourage a now (wisely) jettisoned candidate to start calling you from distant resorts in order to tempt you to go out for a stint as Sugar-Mummy-in-the-Sun.
    So what did I